Bin Laden’s Death Sparks Record 12.4 Million Tweets Per Hour

The death of Osama Bin Laden was one of the most tweeted events in history — and generated the highest sustained rate of tweets ever.

Twitter has released updated statistics on the usage of its platform last night. Previously, the social media company reported that more than 4,000 tweets were sent per second during the beginning and the end of Obama’s speech. It now says the real number of tweets was about 25% higher.

At 11:00 p.m. ET, just before Obama’s speech, users generated 5,106 tweets per second, the highest single volume of tweets during the night. At 11:45 p.m., just when he finished his speech, Twitter users were sending 5,008 tweets per second.

“Last night saw the highest sustained rate of Tweets ever,” Twitter announced in a tweet. “From 10:45 – 2:20am ET, there was an average of 3,000 Tweets per second.” That equates to a whopping 27,900,000 tweets in just two hours and 35 minutes.

Between 10:45 p.m. ET and 12:30 a.m. ET, the company says its users averaged 3,440 tweets per second. At its peak, Twitter delivered an average of 12,384,000 tweets per hour.